


T)(IS PROBABLY WWONT --END WW-ELL

by subtropicalStenella



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood and Gore, Bloodplay, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, F/M, First Time, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Reconciliation, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Will You Two Stop Being Reasonable And Just Hatefuck Already, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-31 22:58:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6490717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subtropicalStenella/pseuds/subtropicalStenella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You were Made For Each Other--just not the way you thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	T)(IS PROBABLY WWONT --END WW-ELL

It was probably bringing up your deaths that set her off.

Or the jab at her politics.

You’d come to apologize. Mostly. Sort of. Okay to be perfectly fuckin honest you’d come to win her back.

But that isn’t going to _happen_ , because she can’t fuckin let shit go.

You’re getting ahead of yourself. You did everything right. You called ahead. Well, you pestered her. Not actually _pestered_ her, but like, chatted her up on the husktop. You pointedly didn’t pester her, because she’s a fuckin saint and somehow hadn’t automatically blocked you the second you all got reborn into this weird hybrid post-game world. You just dropped a note in her inbox that you wanted to talk and left it at that. Just the one. You didn’t flood her chatlog with whining and begging and demands like you would have when you were kids because you’ve grown past that. Really. You might have checked your chumroll every fifteen seconds to see if she was online, growing increasingly more bitter when she was online but she wouldn’t fuckin respond already it’s a simple question, takes literally two or three keystrokes to respond but as fuckin usual she can’t be bothered to give you the cod-- _goddamn_ time of day and oh fuck she said yes what do you _do_?

You continue following the advice of a certain shouty mutual friend who also miraculously hadn’t blocked you on principle that was still ringing in your ears three nights--days--whatever--later. You’re pretty sure you’re developing tinnitus or some shit how has he not gone deaf from his own fuckin ranting yet.

CG: ERIDAN. ERIDAN LOOK AT ME. CLEAN THE SALT OUT OF YOUR OVERLY ELABORATE CARTILAGINOUS AUDITORY INPUT FOCUSING FRILLS AND PAY ATTENTION. YOU ARE GOING TO LISTEN TO HER. I KNOW, SHOCKING. IT’S AS IF ALL YOUR FUCKING ISSUES--AND THUS A GOOD PORTION OF MINE--COULD HAVE BEEN SOLVED BY THE SIMPLE ACT OF REMOVING YOUR THINKSPONGE FROM YOUR WASTECHUTE LONG ENOUGH TO LISTEN TO HER PROBLEMS INSTEAD OF DUMPING A PILE OF MISGUIDED, POORLY-DISGUISED RED SOLICITATIONS ONTO HER EVERY TIME YOU OPENED YOUR GAPING SHARKFANGED WINDHOLE. DON'T FUCK IT UP.

So you listened to her. You listened when she said she wasn’t comfortable meeting at the perfectly nice cafe halfway between your weird boxy humanist hivestem things. You listened when she still said no even though you promised it served the really good kind of boiled leaf stimulant, even Nepeta said so, supposedly, through Karkat. And continued to listen when nothing else was fuckin good enough for her delicate fuckin sensibilities or whatever except her own stupid hive because fuck doing things normally like “meeting on neutral territory” the way combatants are supposed to when they want to discuss a truce.

You make time to meet up. Sol is out of the hive for the weekend at a doubles--ugh--Mammalian Loadgaper Repairman, Quadrants and Allies Attempt Various Improbable Race Courses In Impractically Small Vehicles Armed with an Unreasonable Arsenal of Sabotage Weaponry 16 tournament with the other, _louder_ zappy pan-rattled mustardblood asshole and both--ugh--Pyropes. You need to talk to him, too, but you doubt your capacity to survive him and Fef in the same room a second-- _ugh_ \--time.

You show up at her cozy little beachfront bungalow in the late evening, because even though the new sun is supposedly safe to walk around in, neither of you are used to being diurnal yet and also it’s still bright as shit, you’re built to be underwater, she’s built for the coddamn _abyssal depths_ neither of you need shitty fuckin sunshine none of you do but no you got fuckin trolls loungin around with the humans trying to get a “tan” whatever the sweaty stinkin fuck that is newsflash trolls get _paler_ in the sun why do you think Kanaya turned into a walking bioelectric illumination bulb and fuck _fuck_ the door is opening.

She’s dressed down. And. And. And oh, hell, she’s just as beautiful as you remember. Her feet are bare, her toe claws freshly lacquered in acid green and her own fuchsia. Some kind of soft, stretchy calf-length leggings show off the thick muscles in her thighs. A wash-worn tank top advertising the Broadway adaptation of _Sunslammer Down_ hangs off her shoulders over a stretchy green sphere-holster. Leftover clothes from her weekly Attempt To Defy Physics And Anatomy Through Contortionism sessions with the green humans? You might have stalked her social media feeds a little. Just a little.

The lack of jewelry is unusual, and paired with the fact that she’s tied her hair back for the first time you’ve ever seen, in a long, thick braid down her back, she almost looks severe. The Resting Bitch Face complete with Single Disdainfully Raised Eyebrow cements it. You didn’t dress _up_ , exactly, but you did dress nice. Your new jeans are tight, but they say “fashion” not “fuck me” and your crisp button-down is a tastefully high threadcount wine-colored cotton.

She exhales sharply through her nose, her earfins twitching in irritation, and steps aside slightly to let you inside. It’s only when you notice that she hasn’t turned her back on you to lead you into her hive that the details click.

Her clothes are soft and easy to move in. Her hair is tied out of her face to clear her vision. The jewelry is gone so it can’t get torn out. The lacquer on her finger- and toe-claws is the same style of thickly layered varnish you used to use in FLARPing, developed to reinforce the keratin and allow it to be shaped into longer, stronger points.

She’s not dressed down, she’s dressed for a _fight_.

Shit. You don’t. You don’t know where to go from here. You don’t want to fuck this up. You can see the food prep block from here, the stone-topped island laid out with cheerfully mismatched plates and platters of brightly colored, elaborate arrangements of sliced fish so fresh you can smell the tang of seawater on them. You glance back at her, shifting uneasily in your dress shoes until the freshly-shined leather squeaks against itself. You don’t want her to feel like you’re invading by moving farther into her hive without her, but without saying a word she’s telling you that the last thing she wants is to present her vulnerable back to you--earfins clamped down tight, her bioluminescent freckles pulsing faintly down her arms. Not that she has anything to be worried about, after all, you attacked her head-on, haha! Do not make that joke, what is _wrong_ with you?!

So you just. Stand there.

Your third eyelid flickers nervously across your vision, blurring the room for a moment. She swallows, flips an earfin, and nods towards the food prep block. As you head inside, you hear her close and lock the door, pause, unlock, pause, lock, longer pause, unlock, then determinedly slam the lock into place one last time.

You sit at the counter, fidgeting with your rings. The spread would be impressive even if the last time you had fish hadn’t been before The Game began, but you’re honestly blown away because she remembered. It was your guilty pleasure and an inside joke for sweeps, perilously close to upright fuckin cannibalism but _so_ worth it, because no one preps food like your gill. Girl.

There’s a fan of artfully displayed slices of deepwater schooling species closest to you. She knows you think the boiled-sweetgrain-and-raw-vegetable parts of the meal are usually a waste of flavor. You only have to remind yourself once that the color palette of red, pink and white is a matter of limited species variety, not a quadrant solicitation. Next to that is a plate of tiny whole cuttlefish laid atop pats of sweetgrain, the bony bits removed. Her side has the spiky bits of crab legs poking out of rolls doused in eel sauce and a lot of the seaweed-wrapped kind with thickly sliced fish inside and holy shit she found antlerbeetle grubs this time of year?

She sits across from you, squares her shoulders and begins pouring you each a cup of tea from the cast-iron pot on a knitted potholder whose vaguely menacing Squiddle pattern screams “Handmade By Rose Human,” just like the stool covers. Chameowmile doesn’t really go with fish but it’s good quality, and you could both use the calming properties. She breathes deeply, her gills flaring open and closing with a sharp snap, and pins you with a dark gaze finally turning pink around the edges of the iris.

          “So. You wanted to talk. Talk.”

She sounds calm, but the feathery gillfronds below her ears are doing their best to fluff up defensively, and her freckles are only glowing brighter.

          “I. Uhm. I. I…” You shred a cuttlefish roll in your claws, is what you do. Master fuckin conversationalist, you are. Her left earfin develops a slight twitch. The Eyebrow is back, too. There's a tiny indent above and below the thin ridge of darker scales, did she get it pierced? Focus, dammit.

          “I fucked up.”

          “Yep.”

Another cuttlefish roll succumbs to your nervous claws. Cod, what the fuck happened. You used to be able to talk to her. You’d spend hours pestering her, or better still, flopped in a pile of cuttlefish cages and history scrolls and her hair and you’d braid little bits of the ends because you’ve always had fidgety fuckin fronds while you told her about Vriska’s latest fuckin’ useless strategically unsound GR8 IDEA!!!!!!!! to net a whole school of your FLARP partners for her insatiable fuckin nightmare spinnerbeast mom all at once because appaaaaaaaarently doing it in twos and threes isn’t enough anymore it’s upright coddamn ridiculous you’ve got enough problems feedin one giant homicidal mom at least Vriska’s only got to worry about hers goin grubshit fucknuts and terrorizin the surface populace, you’re keepin the Vast Fuckin Glub in check, wait why the hell are you stoppin Spidermom from rampagin again? Spiders can’t swim, it’d be perfect Fef, no, reely, it’s--yeah okay she is kinda close to Kar and Gamz and obviously Vris and look you’re just frustrated okay it feels like your life’s goin stale and and and

And you miss her so much.

          “I owe you a apology.”

          “Just one?”

Fuck damn that eyebrow can arch high. Her long, spiky teeth catch the light as she licks a smear of neon orange roe off her fingers.

          “Okay, a lot a apologies.” You have sweetgrain in the setting of one of your rings.

          “Aboat?”

          "Everythin?"

She snorts dismissively into her teacup, which is just fuckin rude. Here you are puttin your bloodpusher right out on the table for her to chew on, just pick it up off one of the platters of pretty fuckin food she prepped and chow down, but no apparently you got to peel the whole thing open for her and pick apart the little pumpstrings and valves individually and frond-feed her so she can savor your misery or some shit.

          "I'm sorry I killed you." You mutter, shoving a slice of something dark red and laced with pale ribbons of rich fat into your mouth. Something you never thought you’d say to anyone. Something you never dared imagine you’d say to _her_.

          "And?" She crosses her arms, leaning on the counter. Her definitely pierced eyebrow is cocked expectantly.

          “And tried to kill your new buoytoy.” The pun slips out before you can catch it, force of long, long habit.

          “And?” Her tone hasn’t changed once, but a bright, hot pulse of bioluminescence ripples across her face, painting her high, delicate cheekbones in harsh light before rolling down her neck and arms. You probably shouldn’t insult her… face it, her _matesprit_ , even if it still hurts. _Tholluckth_. Of all the trolls on the coddamn meteor. But you aren’t here to piss her off and her upper gillfronds are flushing fuschia, one twitching flare away from Fucking Run, That’s A Threat Display.

          “And Kanaya.” Even if Fef was already dead by then, and Kan thoroughly got you back for it. You’d actually called Kan before Feferi, hoping she’d be more willing to forgive, what with the having killed you once already and all. You discovered that her growl sounds exactly like that of her chainsaw and decided to stick with text messaging for the rest of the group.

          “And?” _taktaktakTAK taktaktakTAK_. Razor claws tap rhythmically on lovingly polished marble. Oh, are you not listing your sins fast enough? Not enough detail? What does she want you to do, go back to the time you got mad and broke a cuttlefish cage when you were three?

          “And hopesploded the matriorb.” Again, she was already dead, and you got it back, and really it’s not even her issue, not like she was gonna be Empress on a damn meteor with a population of less than twenty.

          “And?” _taktaktakTAK taktaktakTAK taktaktakTAKtaktaktakTAKtaktaktakTAKtaktaktakTAK_

Jegus crotchblistering _fuck_ if she doesn’t stop with the clicky talons you’re going to bite her fingertips off. Platonically. Of course. Mostly. Shit. Focus.

          “And tried to start a alliance with Jack Noir." Even if it was a strategically fuckin sound idea and seemed like the only way out of a hopeless situation, you’d tried explaining and it’s what got you into this disaster in the first place but it’s apparently the 12th Perigrees Tithe that just keeps on giving. You choke back the faintest bit of a frustrated growl. It’ll take forever to try and explain again and she’s already making you break down every stupid fuckin mistake you ever made.

          “ _And_?” she snarls. The subharmonics don’t carry the way they would in water, but your can feel them vibrate through the stone of the counter, a half-octave even lower than yours and you really shouldn’t think that’s sexy, shit fuck _shit_.

          “I don’t fuckin _know_ , alright?!” you snarl back, pushing back from the counter and dragging your claws through your hair. Fuck dignity. “Fuckin freaky human jegus bulge _I don’t fuckin know._ I fucked up, okay? I fuck everythin up. Let’s just say I’m sorry for bein a complete fuckin useless bulgeweal our entire coddamn lives and a good bit into the afterlife, is that what you want to hear?!”

          “What I want to hear is _why_ , you absoleute  _basshole_!” she snaps, slapping her fronds onto the counter. Her elbow sends a plate clattering off the edge of the counter to shatter across the floor. “Why go from trying to save me, and _only_ me, which is a whole other coddamn question, to _blasting a hole through my thorax_?!”

Because you needed her. Because she left you. Because if you couldn’t have her, if you couldn't save her, you’d be damned if anyone else could. Because then and now she’s so fucking gorgeous, fangs bared, fins flared, upright fuckin _radiant_ with rage and you can’t bear to let her go. Because she was _yours_. Because you were made for each other but she threw it all away. Because it was always something less than what you thought you had and you wanted more but it was never the right time and never would be because you fucked it up and you _killed her_ and then you _fucking died_.

          “Because you came at me with a 2x3dent!” you snap instead, because it doesn’t matter how you feel, it never did. There’s no fucking point because she will never love you and nothing will change so you’re just going through the motions of an apology that won't make any coddamn difference.

          “What was I supposed to do, pap you back down like a good little moirail, when neither of us wanted moirallegiance?“

          “You were supposed to _come with me_ ,” you hiss. Your own upper gillfronds burn, flushing dark violet. The extra oxygen intake sings through you, warring with adrenaline and the the higher atmospheric nitrogen content on this shitty fuckin planet that threatens to tip you over into giddy hysteria. This is a disaster, you didn’t come here to fight but all you can think of is the bitter seething loss of what you thought you had together. What you could have, _should have_  had together.

          “We were all gonna fuckin die and you were everyfin to me--”

          “What about Karkat? Or Kanaya? Oh, wait--” she sneers and it’s devastating, a wicked twist of plush lips over translucent white icepicks. “I forgot, your friends don’t matter when you have genocide on your mind, they’re just fucking landuh-wuh-wellers! Except even _Gamzee_ tried to make nice with you too!”

          “Oh, nice, pair me with the murderclowwn--”

          “AT L-EAST YOU'D HAV-E SOM-ETHING IN COMMON!” she shrieks, her thoracic gills snapping open for emphasis. Bright fuscia filaments protrude through the wide limbholes of her shirt, and sudden shift in vascular pressure adds thick glottal stops to her accent. Her stool topples over as she surges to her feet.

Oh that tears it. “At least I had the fuckin decency to die for my crimes, remember?” you growl as you yank the bottom hem of your shirt halfway up your chest. Your claws shred through the fabric easily but you’re too fuckin pissed off to care. This was pointless, hopeless, _useless_. She stares, suitably horrified at the thick, knotted scar bisecting your torso, her pupils blown so wide the iris nearly disappears. Chainsaws do not leave clean cuts, gut wounds even less so. “I’d think that earns me a second fuckin chance!”

          “For what? For killing our friends?” she asks, her voice dropping soft and low, almost a purr but for the heavy thrum of her subharmonics, broadcasting seething rage through a thin, unsuitable medium but you shudder all the same as the vibration grabs something deep and primitive in your hindbrain and _twists_. “For threatening to kill off our fucking species because I wouldn’t pail you? For actually _pulling it off_?

          “Oh, I know. Maybe it will make up for _this_ ,” she snarls, tearing at the layers of cloth over her bloodpusher, revealing an ugly star-shaped burn the size of your two fists together, the only mark on her body--you know, because you had her back, you protected her from the world, you never let anyone touch her. “Remember when you wanted my heart so badly you _burnt it from my chest_?”

The only one who ever hurt her was you.

          “ _That wasn’t how it was supposed to happen_!” you hiss frantically. It wasn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t it never was you wanted her you wanted to be happy

          “‘Supposed to happen’ ‘made for each other’ ‘meant to be’ that’s always the story, isn’t it?” she snarls, hot and vicious, fingers hooked into claws kneading the air, her jaw nearly unhinging on the last syllable.

          “I was _supposed to be_ the -EMPR--ESS! We were _made to be_ a team! You were _meant to be_ my strong right frond, and I wanted it to be you so badly. You had the books and the drive and the connections and the _brains_ when you actually stopped to _think_ but what kind of revolution could I lead with a shellfish, arrogant, egotistical, _genocidal_ _hypocrite_ by my side?!” she snarls, striding forward aggressively, invading your space a little more with every cutting insult.

          “I wanted to save our world and you were holding me back!”

          “AND I WWANTED YOU TO LOVVE ME!” you roar into her face, your fins and your gillfronds finally flaring wide to match hers, stunning her to silence. It doesn’t last, a heavy rolling growl rises from both your subharmonics as her claws find and carve thick white gouges into the counter. “If we were so _fuckin_ good together, wwhy the fuck couldn't we havve that too?! Why couldn't you just pity me?!"

          “I DID!” she shrieks over a cascade of shattering crockery as she sweeps half the plates off the counter. “I _did_ , you colossal fucking _moron_! I pitied you so much, you had so much fucking potential and you were _throwing it all away_. I wanted to FIX you!"

          "Oh, sure," you sneer, scathing and bitter and _cod_ it feels so fuckin good to cut loose. "Fix me, fix the world, fix the whole fuckin universe! Just sweep it up nice and safe in its pretty little cage just how you like it because you know best don't you? You always do!"

What are you doing?! You can't stop, you've wanted to say this all your fuckin lives. She's so naive, so sweet, so trustin, so fucking gorgeous. She loves so much and so hard it's pitiful but it's fuckin infuriatin because it would only hurt her! Your vicious fuckin world would have chewed her up and spat her out and she'd _let it_. Hell, in another world she _did_.

          "To bad we'll never get to see the perfect empire you'd create--oh wait. We have. It shit out a bunch of pan-rattled assholes just as fucked up as the rest of us, and they tore your Empire down i _n favor of the Condesce!_ They broke your perfect world to splinters and I couldn't let that happen to you! I _won't_ let that happen to you!”

Oh fuck, oh fuck what are you saying what are you doing?! Everything is falling to pieces but the pieces fit so perfectly into something new something so perfect you can't believe you never saw it before.

Something snaps. Changes. Shifts. And she stops dead. “You’re saying you'd rather kill me than watch me die.”

You take a deep, shuddering breath and risk everything. You reach for her with one shaking hand and cover the horrible, beautiful star-shaped scar on her chest so you can feel her bloodpusher pounding against your palm. You know her heartbeat like your own, so slow, a deep benthic single-chambered rhythm unique to coldbloods and seadwellers… And now it's racing like a fleetbeast’s. You did this. You tore her heart out and yet here she is, standin before you with vicious icepick teeth bared and beautiful bright challenge in her eyes.

          “I would rip this open again with my fingers right now, if it meant I could spare you one moment of pain from anyone else.”

Why are you whispering?

          “You got lucky the first time,” she hisses. “And you’re luckier still that you did.”

Her fingertips trail softly through your shredded shirt, across the knotted oversensitive tissue running around your back, her face scant inches from yours.

The freckles in her face are flashing blinding warning patterns, echoed by your own.

You can count individual scales across the bridge of her nose.

          “Because I wouldn't have needed a chainsaw to tear you in half,” she purrs.

And then she's biting deeply into the side of your jaw, holding your head and teeth at bay with her own as she digs her claws in along your thoracic support column and _rakes_ them out and around your sides.

You roar in pain, curling forward defensively and sinking your own claws into her chest. When she hooks her claws under the edges of your cardiovascular support struts and uses the leverage to pick you up and throw you into the recreation block, half her shirt goes with you.

You topple backwards into the squashy entertainment seating arrangement unit, going up and over the back as she hurtles through the air after you, teeth and claws bared. You kick your legs up at the last second, catching her in gut with both hard-soled shoes and propelling her over and forward to crash onto the boiled bean stimulant service plateau on her back, the transparent silicate top shattering under her weight.

You roll to your feet, lick rich violet blood from lips torn by your own teeth and can't resist beckoning to her mockingly as she stands up amid a musical rain of falling razor edged shards. Fuck, she looks so beautiful with your blood on her hands and in her teeth, how could you have missed that?

She lunges for you again, reaching for your vulnerable stomach. When you dodge backwards she grabs your tattered shirt instead, yanking the bottom hem up and over your head, trapping your arms in the tight-fitted fabric and using the whole mess like a leash to throw you into a standing illumination device and onto the floor.

You skid on your back towards the food prep block again, hissing at the fiery heat of an ugly rug burn all up one side and wrestling your head free of your shirt. She pounces on you before you can do more than get it past your horns and you can't help a helpless moan as her glorious legs straddle you, squeezing your hips. She fists one hand in the tangled fabric over your arms, twisting it tight, the other wraps around your throat as she _grinds_ viciously down on your very-obviously-interested bone bulge.

          “Is that what this was about?” she sneers, the tips of her nails scratching the roots of your gillfronds--not fucking fair, that's playing dirty--and rolls her hips again, too hard, too rough, too fucking perfect. “Can't get your bulge wet red, so you try to make me flip black?”

You can't help it, you laugh. You laugh right in her fuckin face and arch your hips up into her, watch her hiss as her claws tighten around your neck.

          “Pupa, I didn't even have to try,” you purr, all slick, cocky arrogance you just know will drive her right up the coddamn wall and it _does_.

Her forepan crashes into yours, her horns slotting neatly into the recurve of yours like broken silicate repaired with gold. She's kissing you like she wants to tear you open and crawl inside, two long teeth piercing your bottom lip even as her tongue is sliced open against your sharklike fangs. She tastes like helpless rage and riptide and _home_. If you survive this you're putting rings in those holes, gold just like hers, with fuchsia stones to match the fluid seeping through the thin fabric of her leggings as she ruts against you.

You writhe under her, desperate and uncaring because she _knows_ , she's always known how badly you want her, need her and for once in your life you don't care if your neediness pisses her off because that just makes it better. She twists your shirt tighter around your hands, holding you down, and drags her claws over your stomach, completing the circuit around your body, rewriting scar tissue and making it _hers_ as you scream for her, only for her.

She sits up slowly, watching your chest heave, her hand flat over your torn thorax, violet welling up between her fingers. Slowly, deliberately, her fingers go to your fly, wrenching button and zipper open in one rough motion, and you hiss raggedly as your bulge slithers out in a loose coil, smearing fluid across your stomach and her thighs. Hers is pressing hard against the seams of her leggings, the thin fabric stretched to translucency. She shifts up just enough to shove your jeans down your thighs, and you're just enough of a brat to buck your hips upwards as she does, threatening to knock her off balance until she snarls at you again, her claws digging into your abused stomach at your satisfied, mocking little purr.

She doesn't bother pulling her leggings off, just threads her claws into a straining seam and tears it open, her bulge spilling out to twine hungrily around yours, bright and frilled and everything you’ve ever wanted. She grinds her hips against yours, picking up a rolling rhythm as familiar to you both as the tides and you throw your head back on a moan, the tips of your horns tearing through the carpet.

She's so quiet, hisses and sighs and soft little grunts to your moans and you realize you want to make her _scream_. You force your hips to still, your bulge to uncoil and seek her nook but she snaps her teeth at you, roughly pins your bulge against your stomach with her hand. She smirks at your whine and kisses you, all teeth and cold fury, as she shifts to shove her bulge into you.

You moan into her mouth, your eyes rolling back into your head, as she writhes and coils inside you, your seedflap pulsing as internal cilia twitch and shiver at the sudden contact. You're going to spill like a fuckin juvenile at this rate, but her little sighs are coming faster, higher now, and she’s released your bulge to brace herself on her elbow. You shift, just enough, your bulge sliding down the crease of her thigh and then up and you're surrounded by slick, cold heaven and she _shudders_ , staring down at you as you writhe and pulse and rock in tandem. You never imagined this, never dreamed something could be this perfect. You find a spot that makes her growl and push harder against you, makes her this wild, cruel, hungry thing that no one has or will ever see but you because she's yours, just like you've always been hers, with fuchsia and violet pouring out over both of you as you scream your climax.

She collapses stickily onto your chest, gasping for air, her gills flared as wide as yours. Though now it's less threat display and more lack of oxygen. You don't say anything. You don't need to. You figure you can't get a better “I told you so” than being sprawled fuck-drunk, bloody and mostly naked on her recreation block floor.

At least until she pushes up and off of you, scrambling backwards to brace her back against the seating unit, knees pulled tight to her rumblespheres, breathing hard, her eyes wide and shocky.

Oh no, oh no, no no no this is bad.

You pull your hands out of your ruined shirt, sitting up. “Fef? Fef, come on, breathe for me, angelfish. What's wrong?”

She stares at you incredulously, and frankly you can't blame her, it figures the first time you actually mean your stupid pale nothings is when… well, when you're sprawled fuck-drunk, bloody and mostly naked on her recreation block floor. But you can't fuck this up you can't lose her again you can't you _can't_ not now not when you just got her back and got it _right_.

You watch her take hard, shallow breaths, fingers wrapped around her horns. They probably hurt like hell. Yours do and you love it but... Fuck. She needs her moirail, but she's not in any shape to handle a palmhusk and Karkat is the only one that will talk to you and he said not to fuck it up and you're _pretty fuckin sure this counts as fuckin it up you can't lose her you can't--_

          “Oh my cod, whale you clam the _shell_ up?” she wails.

You clam the shell up and you sit on your hands as she takes a long, deep breath.

          “I reely, reely can’t deel with your carping on right minnow,” she growls.

She's punning at you again, that's good, right? Should you push? Just a little?

          “Could you ebber?” you murmur. “I’ve been driving you batfish since we were wrigglers, haven't I?”

She looks up, hissing venomously at you, those beautiful almost-fuchsia eyes burning into you through the disheveled curtain of her hair.

          “If I say no, I'm lying. If I say _yes_ , it makos you right all along. If I just punch you in the fanghole, you're _still_ right and that is an utterly terrifrying conchcept, as much as I reely, _reely_ want to punch you in your stupid smug face.”

You can feel yourself smiling so wide it threatens to wrap around your head and make the top of your thinkpan fall right off. You kick your shoes and stained jeans off, stretching as you stand up. She glares at you as you attempt to saunter into the food prep block and end up with a slightly more ungraceful limp. Let her. Your last molt left you with fantastic glutes.

A single crab roll survived the furious destruction of your beautiful, elaborate reconciliation meal, teetering precariously on the edge of the counter. You don't actually like eel sauce, but _she_ does. Her scandalized gasp when you pop the morsel into your mouth is music to your auditory input frills as you pass through the prep block to the ablution chamber. If you know your gill--and no one does like you do--she’s going to have a massive soaking basin and the really good mineral salts hidden in behind the horncare supplies. You wonder idly if you still have that jar of phosphorescent squid ink in your sylladex. You might put it in her keratinous cranial extrusion cleansing fluid.


End file.
